An old sweet shop in an old part of Tokyo

Japan may well have suffered several decades of economic stagnation, but Tokyo is still a city very much in flux, with buildings both big and small going up and down at an almost dizzying pace. A transformation generally done in the name of progress, but which at the same time often destroys a good deal of the city’s character — even its soul if one is inclined to get a little sentimental about such things.

But that’s not to say that other old, practically untouched pockets of Tokyo don’t exit, because they do. Like this fabulously dated sweet shop for example. A business that with a bit of luck will live on for as long as its owner does, although the chances of it going on to outlive him are sadly next to none.

Exactly the kind of candy shop I went to when I was a tyke growing up in Tokyo. With my friends, Japanese and expat kids “gone native”, and a fist full of five and ten yen coins, I’d get Kuro Ame (burnt sugar candy), Konpeito (star shaped sugar candy), Kanten (dried agar bars), dried Umeboshi, Yokan (red bean jelly), Su-Konbu (sweet & sour dried kelp), Saki Ika (sweet dried squid), Ramune, and even candied, fried grasshoppers once. They came in a bag like any other loose candy. Super sweet, crunchy, kind of nutty. Kid gross constant dare.

I went to different shops if I wanted more Western style candy like Fruits Drops, Milky, chocolate bars (Meiji, Morinaga, Lotte), Glico caramels, or Botan Ame, which I oddly didn’t think of as Japanese, because I first had it in the US. This was all way before Poki, or any of the newfangled stuff.

Pretty happy I can still get all of that at my local Japanese market – well, except for the grasshoppers…